


Worth It

by misura



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Changing Tenses, Community: Harlequinkradam, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-27
Updated: 2010-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Let's face it," Katy says, "you're only in this for the money."</i> (It Could Happen to You-ish AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth It

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: _24\. Cop Kris Allen is the definition of a nice guy. So when he runs out of change for a tip at his favorite cafe, he pulls out a lottery ticket and promises beleaguered waiter Adam Lambert that if he wins, he can have half the jackpot. Adam just doesn't have the faith to believe him, but what happens when Officer Allen shows up the next day with half of a million-dollar jackpot in tow?_
> 
> _For Kris, sharing the jackpot with Adam is just the right thing to do...but will his gold-digging girlfriend feel the same? And what about Adam's boyfriend, who is a little suspicious of cute boys bearing string-free money? Will Kris and Adam be able to connect with each other, or will the money get in the way?_

"Let's face it," Katy says, "you're only in this for the money."

And if this had been the first time Adam'd met her, he might think she was cute, and perfect for Kris, because she's very clearly a girl but also a bit of a tomboy - like, he'd never mistake her for a boy, but she's _fun_ and _funny_ and under any other circumstances, she'd be Adam's favorite kind of customer, maybe even his friend.

"Let's face it," he says, because she's neither of those things now, "you're just jealous. Sweetie."

"Can we maybe talk about this like reasonable people?" Kris asks.

Ever the optimist; that's Kris for you.

 

Adam would tell you he doesn't quite remember the first time he met Kris Allen and technically, he might be telling you the truth, because when it comes to Kris, there's a whole string of firsts Adam remembers and none of them are anything as simple as a meeting.

He remembers the first time Kris walked into _Cook's Cafe_ \- it was a sunny Summer's day and Adam was wearing sunglasses and Kris was not, and Adam saw his shirt and thought it wouldn't have looked good on anyone but Kris (which was not to say it was a _nice_ shirt, or that Adam wouldn't have tried his best to see it get lost in the laundry if he'd been Kris's boyfriend).

Megan'd taken his order and Adam'd brought two omelettes (one with bacon, one with cheese) to the couple sitting in the booth next to Kris's. The guy's shirt was nicer than Kris's, but he didn't quite make it work, and he also seemed to think Adam was deaf or something, commenting on Adam's hair with a sneer and a chuckle. (His girlfriend hadn't laughed and left a five dollar tip by way of apology.)

He remembers the first time he took Kris's order - a plain cup of coffee - and he'll probably never forget the first (and last) time he stumbled over Kris's guitar case, if only because Anoop keeps reminding him of it, which would have been far more bearable if only Adam had something to tease Anoop back with in return, but Anoop's only weakness is that he wants to audition for _American Idol_ and given that this is LA, that's actually halfway realistic, as far as ambitions and dreams go.

(Adam wants a cute boyfriend and to star in a Broadway musical; on some days, he thinks the second might be manageable but the first utterly impossible; all the cute boys in LA are either straight or taken or both.)

He remembers the first words Kris ever said to him ("I'm sorry,") and the first words _he_ ever said to Kris ("I'm so very sorry," because "Fuck!" was just a shout-out to the world in general, a kind of _'make love, not war, and also: please don't make me stumble over guitar cases and spill coffee on cute guys'_ ).

"Are you all right?" Kris asked, looking all concerned and sort of frightened, like he'd never be able to forgive himself if Adam'd gotten injured or something because he'd been too stupid to pay attention to where he was putting his feet.

"Are _you_ all right?" Adam asked, because hel-lo, hot coffee meets actually sort of decent shirt (and it just figured, of course, that Adam'd be spilling coffee on the one decent shirt Kris owned).

Kris grinned, and Adam totally didn't get the joke until Kris said: "Are you going to repeat everything I say?" and then he managed a kind of smile that probably made him look exactly like the type of idiot who went around spilling coffee on people, so that was all right except that it wasn't.

He remembers the feeling of Kris's hand in his, warm and solid. He remembers thinking in that moment of what that hand would feel like on his cock, which was a little embarrassing, really, seeing as how he's now probably going to be thinking of sex every time Kris walks into the cafe, which is close to every single day of the week. (And okay, Adam thinks of sex _a lot_ , especially when he's in between boyfriends, but there's a time and a place for that stuff, and on the job, while working, so very much isn't it.)

If Adam doesn't quite remember falling in love with Kris, it's only because he can't remember _not_ being in love with Kris. It's cliched and cheesy and pathetic, but then, Adam never claimed he was cool.

 

"This is cliched and cheesy and pathetic," Brad informed him, which Adam figured he maybe sort of deserved, only then Brad added: "Even for you," which Adam thought really crossed a line.

"Is not," he said.

"You fall for a guy at first sight - cliche. You feel like you've been in love with him forever when actually it's been more like what? four hours? - cheesy. And to top things off: you don't even know if he's playing for our team. Pathetic. I rest my case."

"I've been seeing him for almost a month," Adam defended himself.

"Okay, so you've been making puppy eyes at him for a long time." Brad's sense of time had always been a little odd, Adam knew - being an hour late was never a big deal, but being in a steady relationship for three months was 'like being married'. "I'm not sure if that's cheesy or pathetic."

Adam didn't think he'd been 'making puppy eyes'. Not _noticeably_ , anyway. "He's a customer at the cafe."

"Would be kind of awkward after you guys break up."

"Maybe we're not going to break up," Adam said. "Some people do that, you know."

"Way I look at it, you might never hook up in the first place." Brad seemed cheered at the idea.

Adam sighed and wondered why he'd even bothered to talk to Brad about these sorts of things.

"I'll ask around a bit, see if anyone remembers seeing the guy hang out," Brad said, and Adam remembered. "His fashion-sense should make him stand out like a sore thumb."

"He looks good!" Adam protested. "He's cute!"

Brad patted his hand. "I'm sure it makes you feel better if you keep telling yourself that."

 

Adam remembers the first time he told Kris he loved him. They were at the cafe, and Kris had ordered a plain cup of coffee (he takes milk sometimes, sugar on occasion, both rarely, and on rainy days, every once in a while, he orders a hot chocolate - Adam's put a bag of marshmallows in one of the cupboards in the kitchen for the next time).

It's sort of quiet, and there's nobody sitting in the booths next to Kris, which maybe is on purpose, because Adam's heard by now that Kris is a cop ('it's mostly paperwork,' Kris had claimed, smiling, and Adam'd thought Kris was a terrible liar). He bullies Megan into letting him take Kris's coffee.

("You should talk to him, you know," she told him. "Get to know who he is. Here, you take him his coffee. You're due for a break anyway - just sit down and have a chat.")

How it goes is: Adam intimidates her with his tallness. He brings Kris his coffee, and Kris looks up at him and smiles in that Kris kind of way, and so Adam boldly sits down, because that smile is totally an invitation - he simply hasn't taken Kris up on it until today, being a professional and all.

("I know this is weird," Kris said. "But I kind of see you every day so it sort of feels like I know you, and I'd really like to talk to someone right now. Could you maybe spare a few minutes?")

Kris sips his coffee for a bit, not looking at Adam in a way that makes it entirely obvious he is, in fact, looking at Adam. He's blushing a little. It makes him look cuter.

"I'm in love with you," Adam says. "I have sexual fantasies about you pretty much every day since the first time I saw you." (It's more like three times a day now, but Adam figures there's such a thing as Too Much Information; he's just taking some poetic liberties with the truth.)

("Sure," Adam said, smiling.)

"I got into an argument with my girlfriend last night," Kris says. "I want to make it up to her by buying her something nice, but I've no idea where to even start looking. Might you have any idea?"

 

Adam remembers the first time Kris didn't leave a tip.

Kris arrives late that day and it's not really raining but not quite _not_ raining either; Kris's hair looks a little wet when he walks in, looking around the cafe (for Adam, Adam wants to think - for an empty booth, Brad would tell him, throwing in an eyeroll for a good measure).

"You really like him, don't you?" Megan asks, as Adam puts his backpack down on the floor behind the counter again, starts taking off his jacket, the sunglasses he doesn't need.

Adam shrugs. (He needs the sunglasses to hide his eyes, to keep people from noticing what or who they're looking at.) Brad tells him he doesn't object to Adam being in love with one guy while dating another - that's just good sense, he tells Adam, not getting too caught up in the here and now, none of this getting all stuck on the one guy you can get when there's hundreds more out there you could be getting who might be better-looking or better in bed or better at housekeeping.

Megan hugs him - it's a spontaneous, unexpected gesture that reminds Adam of his mother. (It would remind him of his sister if he'd had one, he's sure; Megan's not _old_ or anything - but of course neither is Adam's mom.)

On most days, Kris takes his time, sips his coffee, listens and watches and smiles like he's happy.

"Bad day at work?" Adam dares when he picks up the empty cup.

Kris looks up, seems to notice Adam's clothes for the first time. "Just a long one," he says, smiling like it's going to take a lot more than a cup of coffee to make him happy again.

"Sorry." Megan can get away with hugging people. Adam can't, and he knows it. A brief touch on the shoulder is okay though, he tells himself, just some small gesture of comfort.

"Not your fault, is it?" Kris says, smiling like he could be in love with Adam.

Adam smiles back, and there's no 'could be' about _his_ smile; it's all right there, for Kris to see - which is probably why Kris doesn't. See, that is. He's digging in a pocket of his jacket, and then in a wallet that looks thin and worn. Adam catches a glimpse of a picture - someone blonde, probably not a mother or sister, although one never knows and it hardly matters anyway; it's not _her_ place Kris comes to after work for a cup of coffee.

"Oh, man." Kris looks upset. There's two dollars in his hand - enough for the coffee.

"The tip's optional, you know," Adam says, smiling, toying with the idea of telling Kris a kiss would be an acceptable tip as well - not seriously, of course; Adam's exactly that sort of guy, but Kris is not, and Adam knows it entirely too well.

"No, wait," Kris says, and then there's two dollars and a lottery ticket in his hand. "Maybe I could ... well, I mean, it's not like I'm going to win, but ... "

"I appreciate the thought," Adam says. "I really do."

"We'll share," Kris says. "Whatever I win, we'll share it."

Adam doesn't ask if there's any chance of Kris winning a bed. A vacation, maybe? "If it's a toaster," he starts, because Adam doesn't think of himself as a toast kind of guy.

 

It's not a toaster.

"Excuse me?" Adam asks.

It's so very much not a toaster.

"A million dollars," Kris says softly. He seems embarrassed about it. "I had them check the number." As if people might accidentally tell someone they've won a million dollars. "Twice."

"That's ... " Nobody in their right mind would share a million dollars with someone they barely know. "That's awesome, Kris." Adam wouldn't share a million dollars with someone he _does_ know - promises or no promises. There are things in life worth more than money, such as people who don't mind that you don't have any - and people who don't mind that when you get some, you keep it for youself.

"Half of it's yours, of course," Kris says, as if he's stating the obvious.

"No," Adam says, because it's _not_ obvious. "No." It's not that he couldn't use the money, or that he doesn't need it, or even that he doesn't want it - he could use it and he sort of needs it and he wants it as much as he's ever wanted anything (not more than Kris, he doesn't think, but then, it's not as if he's going to have to choose). "No."

"Yes," Kris says, looking up. "I promised you half of whatever I won, and I will keep that promise."

"It's _half a million dollars_ ," Adam says.

Kris still doesn't look happy. "I thought you'd be happy," he says.

"I _am_ happy," Adam says. "For _you_."

Kris sighs and shakes his head.

 

"I feel your pain," Brad tells him over the phone, because somehow, after Kris has left, Adam's called him to do a proper freak out, notwithstanding the fact that Brad only puts up with one person's freak outs, and that person is Brad.

Adam breathes in, breathes out again. It doesn't really help.

"I mean," Brad goes on, "someone's trying to give you half a million dollars, and you don't even need to sleep with them to get the money? Poor baby."

"This is not _'Pretty Woman'_ ," Adam says. "And anyway, that was about someone who was rich already. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the present situation."

"You forgot the part where you look nothing like Julia Roberts," Brad says. "You know how much they paid her for that role? It probably was a lot more than half a million. I'm just saying."

"I can't just take half a million dollars for doing nothing!"

Brad crams several volumes of text on how Adam should just take this lucky break in about five seconds' worth of silence. Then he says: "Would you feel better about taking the money if you were sleeping with him?"

"No!" Adam says. He thinks he might feel less conflicted about _not_ taking the money though - like, if he'd be sleeping with Kris, taking the money would be kind of tacky, as if Kris'd be paying him for sex, or maybe to not tell Kris's girlfriend he's cheating on her. It would make sense, kind of.

Brad makes this sort of humming sound. "Maybe you should work on that while he's still sort of an ordinary guy."

"He's got a girlfriend," Adam says.

"You've got a boyfriend," Brad says. "The relevance of these things is relative. Have you met her?"

 

Adam remembers the first time he met Katy.

He caught a glimpse of her face that day when Kris promised him what turned out to be half a million dollars and then, the afternoon after the morning Kris told him he was going to give Adam more money than he'd normally make in five years, she walks into the cafe.

"Look," she tells him, "I don't know how you got Kris to promise you half, and I don't care. You're not getting a cent. That money belongs to Kris. I'm not going to let someone like you take advantage of him."

She hasn't asked anyone who he is - Anoop, apparently, doesn't look like the type of guy who would inspire Kris to offer him half a million. (Is it racist when it's sort of positive?) Megan, of course, is the wrong gender.

"I think you've got the wrong idea here," Adam says, because he's at work and since he's passing up on five hunderd thousand dollars, he needs the money that comes with having a job.

"You're going to tell him you don't want the money," she says.

"I did tell him I didn't want the money!" Adam doesn't say. "He wouldn't listen!" he doesn't add.

What he says is: "If it's Kris's money, don't you think it's _his_ decision what to do with it?"

Adam remembers the first time Megan's glared at him.

("You can act like a jerk sometimes," she tells him.)

("She wasn't listening to a word I said," he says.)

("You weren't saying much worth listening to," she says. "You were acting like a five-year-old.")

 

Adam remembers the first time he sees Kris and Katy together, although he's never been sure who was bringing who, and who would have prefered to be somewhere else.

They sit down and Megan takes their order and Kris looks at Adam.

Adam brings them their coffee - two cups, both black - and then he sits down on the empty side of the booth, feeling like he's on trial or something like that. Katy's expression is determined, Kris's resigned.

"Let's face it," Katy says, "you're only in this for the money."

"Let's face it," Adam says, remembering what Megan told him earlier, "you're just jealous. Sweetie."

She glances at Kris, at Adam, back at Kris. She's not like Kris; she picks up on hints even when nobody's dropping any - which is sort of ironic, given what Kris does for a living.

"Can we maybe talk about this like reasonable people?" Kris asks.

"What are you suggesting, Kris?" Katy says, and if Adam were Kris, he'd be looking for cover - or maybe simply running for the door, but Kris just smiles at her as if he's glad she's asked him that question.

"I promised Adam half of whatever prize I would win." A reasonable person would not be saying that, Adam thinks. A reasonable person would never have made that promise.

"Did you know he's got a boyfriend already?" Katy says. "Or did he forget to tell you that?"

Kris blushes. "It wasn't like that," he says.

Adam has absolutely no idea what it _was_ like - or what it _wasn't_ like, for that matter.

"Kris," Katy says, "he's _using_ you." If looks could kill, Adam would be a very confused corpse right now.

"In my _dreams_ , yes." The words simply sort of slip out. "In reality, not so much. I mean, he's got a girlfriend, so I kind of assumed he wasn't ... " Katy stares at him. "I didn't think ... " Adam stammers.

"You promised half a million to some guy you weren't even having sex with?" Katy asks, looking not nearly as surprised as Adam would have been in her place. Presumably, it's because she knows Kris.

"I was working up to it," Kris says, cheeks pink but expression stubborn.

Katy looks at Adam and for the first time, it's not as if she wants to kill him.

"He was being very subtle?" Adam offers, mostly because it seems kind of mean to not back Kris up on his claim that he was 'working up to' having sex with Adam. Which is sort of - really?

"You mean he was being an idiot," Katy says.

Adam considers. "You don't seem very upset your boyfriend's hitting on another guy."

"I can see why he likes you," Katy says. Adam doesn't think that's supposed to be a compliment.

Kris coughs. "I'm gay but Katy's my highschool sweetheart and we moved here together so we kind of agreed to keep living in the same apartment?"

"That makes sense," Adam says, by which he means it really doesn't, but he's not going to argue.

"I met someone, too," Katy says.

"I am happy for you?" Adam tries.

Her smile's got an edge to it. "You should be."

"I was thinking about giving Katy my half of the money so she and Drake could get a place of their own," Kris says. Katy frowns at him. Adam wonders if Kris has got some sort of aversion to money; being nice is one thing, but this is slightly ridiculous.

"Drake?" he repeats. Not someone he knows, probably - and almost certainly not the guy he's been kind of dating these past weeks. That would be entirely too much of a coincidence to be even remotely believable. Stuff like that only happens in movies.

"Your boyfriend?" Of course, this _is_ LA. "Well, _ex_ -boyfriend now," Katy says.

"Oh," Adam says.

"And I'm not taking Kris's money."

"Take mine," Adam says, before he can change his mind.

Kris blinks. Katy smiles. She's not going to refuse, Adam knows. 

Looking at Kris, Adam decides he's not sorry.


End file.
